Transgenderism

How hard for you Galen. It is so hard as parents to see our children hurt even when they are adults.

That shoul be sir not miss. He wants to be addressed as miss.

My son who is trying to transgender is a very masculine, broad shouldered hairy male with a very deep bass voice. He is getting very cross as people keep on addressing him as Miss.
In a dress etc he looks nothing like a woman.
He is waiting for referral at the moment. As he is bi polar, alcoholic and epileptic I do wonder what his chances are and how he would respond to refusal,

My cousin who funded her own surgery 25 years ago looks very feminine. She tells me from a young child she knew she was female not male and took lots of negative reactions from everyone around her, especially her family. She has only been in touch with me during the last 18 months to let me know her mum, my aunt was dying. She expected rejection from me but we have struck up a friendship.

Sadly she said she could never meet me physically as she would be worried that by accident I might let her friends know of her origins. She knows I would not do it purposefully but she leads a secretive life even now.

I'm in contact by email and phone.

I' M sorry Mary. Somehow I had missed reading your post before writing above. Are you through all the surgical procedures now? How has life been for you since and what difficulties have you encountered ? It would be very interesting to hear if you feel able to share it. Thanks.

I have had the unusual experience of assisting at a male to female sex change operation as a medical student. We were making a vagina from a piece of bowel leaving it attached to the omentum to keep it's blood supply .
I have met 4 or 5 male to female transitions over my medical career. I have also seen TV coverage of a few folk in a similar position. I have deep concerns about this surgery. None of the patients I have known have been convincing females after considerable amounts of surgery. They have never been well adjusted in their new gender. I feel for them enormously. Does anyone on the forum know of a success story?

This "No irrevocable changes" argument is rather strange. It's usually used to mean that a child who knows they are female must be forced to go through puberty as a boy and have to live with a deep voice and beard growth for the rest of her life.

I don't know what professional involvement Luckygirl has with MtF surgery. I was quoting from the warnings that the surgeon was obliged to give, which included the incidence of complications. The risks were probably a lot higher when it was a new and semi experimental procedure.

I would appreciate it if you could quote a place where "children are given hormone treatment to establish the gender of their choice". Preferably with a reference.

Just to agree with nellie that I am sure that these decisions are not made lightly, but I am advocating that these decisions need mature reflection and that children need careful handling so that the "tomboys" or boys who feel they should be girls can be just that without being labelled as having gender dysphoria at too young an age. Some of the stories from the US give me cause for concern.

I am not sure which facts you are referring to Mary - I have said that people should have the right to be who they are without censure. I have also said that it is very important that those making these big decisions are old enough and mature enough to be able to make them - and to understand the implications for the future. I am 67 and my ideas and thoughts are very different from when I was 17, or 27. There is a period in young people's lives when they are exploring what their sexuality is and what it means for them, and I feel it is important that they are given space and time to think this through before taking any irrevocable action that may be regretted by the person they become as they get older.

Or was it the facts about the male to female surgery? I can only say that I have seen some serious complications occur with hemorrhage and infection. These are not to be regarded lightly.

I also said that some people who change from male to female have no chance of being recognised as female if they are large-boned and very tall. Someone tacking the huge decision to transition needs to be ready to face a lifetime of challenges - they need to understand what the reaction of those around them might be. Now you might say that this reaction is inappropriate, but it is a fact of life and one of the challenges that they need to be prepared for. A lifetime of heads turning in the street is hard - that is a lot of years of being strong, which some may not be able to sustain.

Children need the time and space to work out their sexuality and gender and I do not think any sort of treatments should start below the age of 18. Certainly nothing that is irrevocable. That does not mean that prior to this they should not have understanding and support.

It is impossible for those of us not facing this sense of being in the wrong body to begin to understand how that must feel. That does not make us uncaring and intolerant - the two are different things.

From what I have heard in recent media coverage, many of the children who do feel they are a different gender to the one they were born into, seem to start expressing the feeling at an early age, that they are boys not girls (or whichever gender) they were registered as.
I am quite sure most people with gender dysphoria do not make these decisions lightly.

Interesting how transgendering (if that's the verb) is all about self image and sexuality. I don't recall anyone who wanted a woman's body desiring to be selfless, earn less, clean up babies' and cats' sick while a man gets to opt out, suffer monthly hormonal mood swings and agonising pains while working at a 100% rate and pretending everything is normal, doing 98% of the housework, supporting friends in their (almost constant) low patches without any help or interest in return and telling the men of the house what to wear, eat, do and think.

To be honest I don't mind or even care if people want to cross the gender divide but they should pay for it themselves.

This article is on a level with the use of programs like the Black And White Minstrels to mock niggers (as the people who do so call people of colour).

Luckygirl: check your facts, or perhaps you are one of the group who have no intention of doing so. I agree with your comment that you have no understanding of the strength of feeling that requires such procedures. I also note your confusion of gender and sexual orientation.

Like any surgical procedure there is a risk of complications. About a 0.5% chance of complications that will require further surgery to correct. It is a lot safer than completely unnecessary procedures like liposuction and breast enhancement for example, and in terms of quality of life it is one of the highest return on investment procedures.

This morning I met a young woman, and although it was in the context of cross dressers and transgender people I didn't realise she was trans until she said so. There are of course transpeople (and 'people' includes men and women) who are obvious, and obviously at high risk of violence. Such violence is encouraged by articles like this.

Why would anybody embark on a course that in nearly all cases causes the loss of their families, homes, friends and often jobs? If you actually think about it, because the alternative is worse. Being forced to live in a body and role that you know is false leads nearly half of us to make at least one suicide attempt. That tends to happen when the person concerned has parents who think more of their social standing than the wellbeing of the young person.

I have had vaginoplasty, and like anyone who has had similar corrective work I needed to use dilators every day for several weeks. I'm down to once a week now and may be able to reduce to once a month before long.

As to "children are given hormone treatment to establish the gender of their choice" - again check your facts.

On a lighter note, years ago when my children were very young we went on holiday to my in-laws--- my son & daughter dressed much the same ,(we lived in ZA) they both wore shorts & T shirts. I laughingly said to my MiL this is the girl & this is the boy, (there is only a year between them) & she replied "oh, don't worry, I know the difference between the ball bearing one & the child bearing one!"

Many who identify as transgender don't go for surgery. They don't all take cross-homones either. It gets confusing. The Equality Act 2010 even accepts this - someone just has to have changed their 'identity', it's illegal to discriminate against them. It's illegal to have a women-only gathering without transwomen being allowed. This can lead to clashes...

Women have been eliminated as a legal category.

Because the surgery is so irrevocable, it is so very important that the person undergoing this has explored all other options. I agree that in a sense the surgeries happen because they can. I ear for my friend - she is younger than me and I know how much I have changed over the years. The person she has chosen to be now may not be the person she is or wants to be in 20 years time - but the vital organ will be in the incinerator.

Read the Danish Girl by David Ebershoff - It's a beautiful book on the subject and describes the life of a real person in the 1930's.

There are more LGB people visibly around because we have got past the earlier prejudice and after decades of campaigning and running support services, it's easier for, especially, young people to accept that they may desire people of the same sex. This has got lumped in with the T, though often T is not to do with desire but with the common factor of sex roles, of what's allowed to women and men. Sadly questioning gender has not included what feminists in particular have tried picking apart since the year dot, which is that gender roles are constructed, there's very little that's 'natural' about masculine or feminine behaviours. The prevalence of people identifying as T is like a backlash against that earlier feminist questioning of gender roles, and in fact seems to accept them as real. Sex - male and female (and rarely, intersex) - is real. Gender is not.

It does make you wonder whether the keen-ness to encourage people to transition may have more to do with anti-gay prejudice than with a deep identity disorder. Especially in the USA, there's a lot of parents who seem more prepared to put their sons (in particular) onto the trans conveyor belt, even at the age of five, that to accept that their tiny child is not performing the traditional male roles and may even turn out to be gay. Goddess help us.

I heard a discussion on this topic on R4 not so long ago. An eminent speaker (sorry, I can't recall the name) felt that in many cases this was primarily a psychological issue and not a physiological one. It does seem that there are far more LGBT people around now than one ever suspected. Can it simply because it's become more acceptable, not to say fashionable?

There is a very organised industry that is hard to avoid especially for young people. Anyone questioning gender roles - and isn't that everybody - can get onto the conveyor belt far far too easily. If they go online - and who doesnt?- they will quickly find encouragement that all their problems can be solved by transitioning. It is terrifying. And parents go along with it. Instead of going, yes dear, that's nice that you like pink, of course all children can like pink, they start looking for 'help' online.

Have a read of this
4thwavenow.com/2016/04/27/shrinking-to-survive-a-former-trans-man-reports-on-life-inside-queer-youth-culture/

I feel slightly easier since realising that 'transgender' is now an all-embracing term for all who act against conventional gender roles. It's not the same as transexual ie someone who wants to 'change sex' which of course no-one can do, they can only change their gender presentation. It's fashion.

It's a miracle, apparently, that there are still enough heterosexual men and women to populate the country! Mind you, we are top heavy with 'seniors' so maybe it's gender confusion that's causing the birth rate to drop? Perhaps it's time to do some research in countries where there are pockets of people who have never been exposed to the media to see what the natural level of gender perception is...

I'm not saying that transgender is necessarily caused by a figment of the imagination but political correctness and the media have a part to play in what seems like a sudden surge. I know someone who was born a girl but is now a slightly built man with hairy chest and balding pate. He is one of the most pleasant people I know and has been through a lot of surgery very bravely indeed.

I do worry that just because we can perform radical surgeries, we do. There is quite a percentage of people who having undergone the whole thing, wish they hadn't or even want to reverse their choice.

I wonder why we still pursue the either or options for gender in a world where we know there are more than 2 options, forcing people to make choices of any sort is a bit weird. Gender is a societal thing as much as a biological one.

I know a couple of people whoo have had the surgery and still feel uncomfortable in their own bodies, which must be hell.

But there is not a cut-off line between one or the other. but a long line along which people are spaced, which is why I think young children should not be quizzed about it, but left to develop the way their nature is inclined. If any one had asked me at 4 or 5 or 6 whether I wanted to be treated as a boy and allowed to dress like one, I would have jumped at the opportunity. But I am emphatically not transgender.

Part of the problem is the way society still reacts to individuals who do not quite fit the gender role they are meant to be in. If we could accept that boys will not always be boys and some may prefer to play with dolls, hate football, and be fussy how they dress and that similarly girls may prefer the rough and tumble of boys games and jockeying for position. and that is absolutely normal and doesn't mean they are gay, or transgender or different in any nd people would so accept this that no-one would think to comment on it. It would be much easier for these children and many adults like them.

There would seem to be a difference between being a tomboy and feeling that you are in the wrong kind of body, which is how transgender individuals tend to describe themselves.
Puberty is a confusing time and it happens younger these days. My DGD is just beginning to grow breasts and is not very pleased about it. At the moment she does not even want to walk through the bra department. I'm pretty sure she's happy being a girl though. She just doesn't particularly want to be a woman yet.
I suspect if a child is truly transgender, and has not been pressured about clothes, activities etc it is probably fairly obvious by 11-12 that it is not just a phase.

I was another tomboy. I've got photos of myself as a toddler and you'd never think I was a girl. In the summer I would spend the weekends in shorts and T shirts ( There didn't seem to be trousers for girls much then) But when the hormones kicked in I became very definitely female! I still don't like frilly girly clothes, I prefer more masculine tailoring.

A friend's brother decided he was transgender. He left his wife and dressed as a woman. I don't know how far he went with it physically, but after some years he changed his mind. Hopefully he hadn't done anything too irreversible. None of it went down very well with his family who were very traditional country people.

I am at one with suzied. I was a tomboy in exactly the same way and wished I was a boy, indeed as the eldest of three sisters I was the 'boy' in the family. But like suzied I happily embraced make-up and dressing smartly at puberty. But then boys also start to prank and preen themselves to attract female attention at the same age. However my 'tomboyishness' did extend beyond puberty.

Nevertheless I am very glad that nobody ever asked me or my parents at a young age what gender I identified with because I think there is big difference between the girls like me, and probably suzied who were not 'feminine' girls and liked racing around and the rough and tumble and competitiveness associated with boys and was generally accepted by boys into their gangs and the person or child who feels physically that they are in the wrong body. I do not think a young child would or could understand or know the difference. At 4 or 5, I would definitely have thought being a boy was a good idea, but I am definitely not transgender. I have never been unhappy in my female gendered body, it is just my mind that is out of sync.